Last weekend was beautiful.
The weather was unbelievable. I’m pretty okay with global warming when it’s eighty degrees in October, but not so much when it’s minus eighty degree wind chill in March. That’s when I get over it and try to finish watching An Inconvenient Truth without falling asleep. But for last weekend, it was perfect t-shirt and beer weather. The bars opened their glass doors, the girls threw off their scarves, and we all went out to celebrate the first visit home of a friend who moved to New York City at the beginning of the summer to pursue her musical career.
Of course, we did karaoke.
I’m not a fan. I think it’s a conspiracy how the guy turns the microphone up and down (that’s what he’s doing, I’m sure of it) so that one minute you’re screaming “DAAAANCING QUEEEEEEEN!!!” so loud that everyone’s getting their stuff together to leave, and the next minute,all you can hear is the generic unts unts unts of the re-made background music. So you sing louder, so the guy turns your microphone up. I don’t like how the lights are always orange and purple, and always right in your face, so you can’t see the lyric screen. And who knows all the lyrics when they’ve been drinking and they’re suddenly up on stage and it’s REALLY hot and the microphone keeps getting turned down? I also don’t like how some of the lyrics are INCORRECT. (So many of them are, if you’re paying attention, you’ll catch it all the time.) And it goes without saying that I hate it when a couple of drunk guys work up enough drunk courage to get on stage together for a sweaty, slurred rendition of a Backstreet Boys song. Those are the songs that go on forever.
Unfortunately (for someone who doesn’t agree with karaoke), I am friends with lots and lots of show people. Show people are scary. Show people are loud. Show people are in a musical at every waking moment. I don’t mean to say that people who are performers are generally annoying, I’m saying that there’s a particular breed of musical performers that eat, sleep, and breathe Singing And Dancing. And that’s just not normal.
Which is why, as I sat and enjoyed the sum-fall-mer breeze on an October weekend, nursed my splitting karaoke headache with a cold beer, and closed my eyes to fill my lungs with city air for a heavy, satisfied sigh, I was not to happy when my reverie was interrupted by a show person friend, who had possibly had one or five too many.
“You have to sing!” she screamed over the music, “YOU! You--*hic*--have to--*hic*...ummm, what? SING! Your turn!”
I put my foot down. I put both feet down. No. Not happening. I didn’t care that the guest of honor was begging and pleading. I didn’t care that “everyone else is doing it.” That’s why I’m ashamed to say that the begging, pleading, and peer pressure eventually got to me, and after about an hour of being called a loser party-pooper, I picked a song and waited for the trigger-happy volume operator to call my name, and butcher it when he did.
And that’s how I ended up on stage at Trader Todd’s, where the most popular drink is a wooden ski with six shots on it, squeaking my way through “Brass In Pocket” in the purple and orange lights, sending my headache skyrocketing in the process, boring a room full of drunk, disinterested, Sunday night drinking young professionals. And that’s how I sent my dear show person friend back to New York City happy.
I took one for the team.
And I refuse to do it ever again.
This weekend, I was back in the small Wisconsin town where I grew up, which currently claims title to both Home and Not-Home. It’s Home because it’s where I spent my first eighteen years on earth, from conception (and believe me, this is information I did NOT need to know) to the summer after high school graduation. My mother still lives in the same house on Main Street, in front of which I learned to ride a bicycle, to rollerskate, to chalk an elaborate hop-scotch course, to hit black walnuts into the street with a wiffle bat. To write: after school I would climb the ash tree, settle on a branch a third of the way up with my back against the trunk, and scribble in my notebook. I liked to spy on people who walked, unknowingly, beneath me. I recorded their conversations and the way they travelled, hurriedly or leisurely, striding or strolling.
And of course, it’s Not-Home, because I haven’t lived there in a decade. Where once it was impossible to run a simple errand without seeing someone I knew – my teenage classmates staffed every store in the strip mall, the grocery store, the Ben Franklin, the video rental store, the Hallmark, the Subway, the Hardees, the hardware store – now I can push my cart around the grocery store for an hour and see no one familiar (aside from a weathered woman who looked like an older, shrunken version of my fourth grade reading teacher). I drive around town and compulsively explain the differences between then and now: “This whole neighborhood is new… when I was a kid this was all cornfield… when I was little these roads didn’t connect… this park was full of wooden equipment and an awesome merry-go-round that they ripped out after the third kid in a year broke her arm….”
I move through town with less ease now, feeling like an outsider. My partner and I made up an imaginary movie in which a long-gone townie returns to find everything different – not an uncommon theme – and kept referencing moments that would go into the movie. Our prodigal townie would be a friendly outsider whose every joke falls flat. The moment in the grocery store where we tried to joke with the guy handing out wine samples and he just stared at us – in the movie. Joking about the notices hanging on a community bulletin board – failing miserably at dog park small talk – navigating bizarre road construction – teasing teenagers at the petting zoo – all in the movie. As we described it, the movie wouldn’t even have a plot, really; it would just be a wild collection of moments, a long montage of homecoming awkwardness.
Film can be such a rich medium for storytelling, because it naturally lends itself to comparison in juxtaposition. You show a scene where a character moves through the grocery store with ease, laughing and chatting with everyone she encounters. In the very next scene she’s older and every attempt at conversation falls flat. You don’t have to explain that something has changed: the juxtaposition speaks for itself. Also, film almost forces you to engage setting in the story. After all, you can’t film a scene in a vacuum. Every scene has to take place somewhere. As such, film is a great medium for evoking place and its impact on character.
When they make the movie of my life, this weekend will probably look like a cross between Grosse Point Blank and The Big Chill, funny and twisted and a little sad, with an 80s soundtrack and a bunch of hilarious cameos. In the meantime, I’m going to use the principles of filmmaking to inform my fiction, focusing on place and juxtaposition to enrich my story.
Interested in Filmmaking? Check out our Screenwriting I class, Thursdays, September 18 to November 13; 6:30pm to 9pm. Call 773.477.7710 or email for more information.
I’m always begging students to send in some of their work to post on Cooler. Especially the folks in the beginning classes. My summer Beginning Fiction class for instance was filled with amazing writers who only got better as the term went on and we had occasions to experiment with forms and concepts.
There are some poems posted in the main section, and here is a short exercise submitted by Logan Turner. Enjoy!
Henry
by Logan Turner (Beginning Fiction Summer 08)
The park shone with the energy of a hundred suns. Children shrieked with delight as they spun endlessly on the rusty, paint-faded merry-go-round. The noise of the trees hushing with the wind seemed to scold them, but still their tinny voices carried through the air. The breeze traveled sluggishly through the damp August air, the moisture sitting like a cloud on the backs of everyone’s necks. The sand from the park was encroaching on the grass, errant pebbles lying helplessly so far from home.
The only shade came from the old oak tree, the soggy innards from last night’s rain threatening relief-seekers like a menacing KEEP OUT sign. Despite the heat, no one went near the tree, and when strangers would ask all anyone said was “It may be shady, but it’s sure as hell dark,” as if they all had recited it from a manual. The tree looked harmless enough, though oddly still. The sun blazed, the birds chirped, the air tickled hair, but the tree did not move.
In the blink of an eye, the sun seemed to dim. The day withdrew to forty watts. First one, then two, then suddenly tens and hundreds of clouds filled the expansive sky. The bright blue afternoon turned gray, fading quickly from ash to granite. Like a throaty German Shepherd’s growl, the thunder began to rumble in the distance. Scattered raindrops started to ping to the earth and bright flashes of white-hot lightning pierced the formerly calm afternoon. With a deafening roar, a booming sizzle reached for the tree, and in one fell swoop split the mighty tree down to its roots.
The air crackled from the bolt of electricity and Tasha dropped to her knees, her hands over her ears. The storm had moved in so quickly no one had time to search for cover, and the wails of the frightened children sent all the parents into a frenzy. Mothers and fathers raced in all directions and finding their children became a blind search as the rain came down now in sheets, as if the lightning had torn right through the clouds. The water spilled down Tasha’s face, blurring her vision and streaming into her mouth as she screamed for Henry. He had been tangled up with three other boys on the merry-go-round, which now stood empty and abandoned, slowly turning with the winds of the storm. Tasha felt people brush by her but saw no child unattended, and as she searched frantically with her eyes, she dropped to her knees, her hands seeking contact with tiny four-year-old shoes. The wind whipped her words from her mouth and her eyes and hands found nothing. Unable to tell the rain from her tears, she shook with fury and panic. As she took one last look around, she saw a glimpse of Henry’s red jacket in front of the tree.
From Dana’s novel-in-progress, “Owen Over Bangkok”
It was just one child, but Angela had done it right. She took a rain-soaked t-shirt to the girl’s arms, scrubbing at the caked blood. The sting of decay made her cough as she moved to the legs. Her gloved hands lingered on the feet, dislodging ruddy debris and pebbles from between the toes, skewering with a snapped twig under each tiny nail until each was a white line. Why her? Her hand caught more rain from the roof with the soiled rag and she squeezed the child’s blood into the earth, its redness riding the mud in a foamy stream. At the bottom, Angela wiped. Like a normal change of a diaper. Rocks and mud and sand smeared the cloth and Angela’s hand, hard and yellow in its rubber glove, went from bucket to body, bucket to body. The eyes and nose proved hardest, the grime like glue. Closed forever. So Angela stood, lifted the body against her smocked torso, and carried it to the sea.
Sitting Indian-style in the gentle surf, rain soaking her hair to her scalp, she rocked the girl in her lap. She sung. My precious, it’s early. Awaken. The streets are dark indeed. But precious, wake early it’s worth it. The baker has sweets to eat.
The surf sucked at the sand beneath them, rolled under their legs. They inched forward with each wave.
Angela shampooed the girl’s hair, twisting the dark tendrils between her fingers, its waves like crescent moons tattooed upon her palms.
The rain stopped and the child’s washed clothes dried on the sand. Crude stitches. Did her mother’s fingers sew these? The fabric especially chosen? A yellow shirt stained brown. Blue shorts that caught on a stiff knee as Angela eased them up the body.
A flower for her hair. Pink. Damaged by the water. Fragrant. The stem secured behind a tiny scrubbed ear.
Her own grave. I insist. It was a pit just off of the line of the beach. Dug with a green plastic bowl and Angela’s hands.
She tossed handfuls of dirt on the body until the head, the shoes, the crossed hands were buried beneath. A blonde board from a destroyed home, Angela’s inked words “Beautiful Girl, Died December 26, 2004” written in English, was placed near the feet. Goodbye, Precious.
By J. A. Stanula
I fly constantly. Unfortunately, there is nowhere I feel less comfortable than in an airplane. I don’t like the idea of floating above the earth, and I like even less that a plane has to thrust itself so aggressively into the sky to catch the wind and stay in flight. I do like to travel, though, and make an appearance at various weddings and family holidays, mostly because of all the free food. I used to make myself fly because my girlfriend was far away and even when I didn’t have money to go to the movies, I somehow had money to fly to Chicago. Last year, I was in Chicago 10 times. Oh, and I have a job, too, that requires me to travel. Last year, I visited 5 different states, and had layovers in 4 additional states. That’s 38 flights, 38 landings, and 38 takeoffs. I especially hate takeoffs.
Although I’ve wasted money, blood, sweat, and tears in the air, I’ve learned more about myself than I ever could have on some shrink’s couch. It’s not just that I’m afraid of flying, or that I’m afraid of crashing. It’s that every flaw in my personality is accentuated by the process of flying. Like that mutant mirror attached on a robot arm to the wall of a hotel bathroom that enhances every pore and blemish on your face; flying is my personality magnifying glass.
Every year, flying stresses me out more than the year before. And every time I walk into an airport my blood pressure rises and the worrier in me takes over. Because of security and terrorists and George Bush, the process of getting on a plane requires the patience of eating a 7 course meal with chopsticks. Not that long ago going through airport security was merely a few extra minutes added to the total trip, now it’s like standing in a line up hoping you don’t get fingered. I’m so afraid of accidentally tipping off the Feds to some crime I did not commit that I don’t even wear a belt to the airport, or shoes that require tying. I clean out every pocket and pouch in my bag to be sure I won’t be stopped in security with contraband. While my bags commute through the x-ray machine I worry incessantly and as a result have an undeniable look of guilty nervousness upon my face. Did I leave my tweezers in the zipper pouch? Is my shampoo bottle 3ml instead of 3oz? Did I leave my bag unattended?? Did some one slip a flamethrower or a stick of dynamite in my bag while I naively looked away to pay for my Junior Mints??? My eyes dart around in attempt to appear calm, and I stumble awkwardly over the most simple phrases, “Should I...um...remove my shoes? Oh, my ID? Here…here it is.”
Oh, and I sweat. I sweat a lot.
Its not just the worrier in me that comes out when I fly, it’s the Rain Man, too. Sure, in everyday life I like to arrange my pens in order by ink and performance level and eat green M&Ms last, but my obsessive compulsiveness truly shines when I fly. I have a permanent, unbreakable routine that definitely makes the experience even worse that it already is. Because of my overwhelming fear of boredom and the uncontrollable fear of forgetting something important, I tend to pack a carry-on roughly twice the size of my checked luggage. This carry-on is the evolved version of my “Road Trip to Grandma’s” kit I would frantically assemble throughout my youth the moment I knew I would be in the car for more than 15 minutes. I packed extra when I thought I’d be possibly stuck at an aging relative’s house while someone’s graduation was being celebrated in a cheaply decorated backyard and my mom chugged cheap, domestic beers long after my bedtime. This kit included everything from pens, pencils, markers, highlighters, 3 or more books (in case I am so ignored I have time to finish the first or second) my Walkman (or Discman depending on if it was the 80’s or 90’s), possibly some tiny, green, army men, an Etch-a-Sketch and a miniature chessboard.
My tastes have matured, but only slightly. I still imagine my backpack to be a survival kit. Laptop computer, iPod, books (still plural, though they’ve gotten longer), trashy magazines, newspaper, pad of paper and pens (also plural), cell phone, planner, and whatever mail I haven’t recently opened – I shove all of it into my backpack like an attention deficit child. Yet, I rarely, if ever, actually open my backpack on the aircraft itself, though I never stow it in an overhead compartment. It’s important that the bag is cramping my legs, shoved under the seat in front of me, restricting me from stretching them out. Just to remind me that I’m the victim here.
As soon as I am seated, long before the pilot ever even thinks about leaving the ground I wedge myself into a “comfortable” position, drape something over my eyes, cross my arms across my chest and attempt to sleep, regardless of the fact that I spent hours carefully constructing my activity pack. I do not listen to my iPod because I know I will be awakened to turn it off as the plane begins to move. When the plane takes flight, I refuse to tilt my seat back, again, because I know that at landing a sweet-faced stewardess will wake me from my angry partial slumber to remind me that my seat must be in the upright and locked position. I am partially concerned I’d retaliate against her, and partially concerned she would have found me slack-jawed and drooling.
Flying also heightens my tendency to give in to irrational fears. At home, I always assume a single candle will cause an apartment fire or my cat will choke on a bottle cap, but when I fly, I play a slideshow of movies in my head that contain plane crashes. Inside I know that because I am not Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper or Richie Valens, the day I am in a plane crash will never be known as The Day The Music Died. Except for rare occasions, in most movies that involve the impending doom of a plane crash, the planes miraculously correct themselves almost immediately after a secret affection or crime is confessed. The passengers attempt to save themselves from the punishment of an angry god for not confessing their sins, or their own regret for having not told their best friend/boss/ex they are/have always been/are still in love with him/her.
Because of this fact, those sitcom pseudo crashes make the irrational fear subside slightly, knowing that, more likely than not, in the moment that my plane is about to go sliding into some farmland or an ocean, all I will truly need to do is confess my secret love, or that I pulled off a bank heist, or that I raised money for starving kids in Africa and gambled it away, or something equally as immoral, and my plane will likely not crash—though I might serve some jail time or live in embarrassment of my unreturned love of a second cousin or my ophthalmologist. My irrational fear does resurface, though, each time screens lower to show an in-flight movie. What if they show a movie containing a plane crash scene on the plane? Is it someone’s job to screen for that?
As a fiercely independent person, I also hate that I am so vulnerable when I fly. I have stockpiles of images in my head of airports, boarding passes, take-offs and landings, but the only way I can decipher memories of previous flights from dreams about flying is that in my dreams the planes almost always crash. Sometimes the plane crashes in the creek where I used to fish and light campfires near my house. Sometimes the plane crashes – nose first, sticking up out of the air like a lawn dart – into the park I played in as a kid. Sometimes the plane crashes into my house, and there is fire and everyone is screaming.
Once I dreamed of a plane crash while I was in my partial angry slumber, arms crossed in front of my chest, on a flight from Chicago to Washington, D.C.. For the first time, I was on the crashing plane instead of witnessing it from the ground far below. I dreamed of the plane exactly as it was on that day, sitting in my seat, flying home. In the dream, the plane just suddenly tilts and barrels towards the ground at a million miles an hour and I know its crashing and I’m going to die and all I can do is clutch the ring my girlfriend’s grandmother gave her, which she let me wear, repeating over and over “I love you Lauren.”
I woke up in a start—on the silent flight, breathing the stale air—surprised. I don’t know if this was some sort of plane-crash-confession moment for me, my subconscious trying to pull the nose of the plane back up, because I had already told Lauren I loved her months before, and she wasn’t even there to hear my confession. I do know that upon landing I called her and told her about the dream, and that I hadn’t been that scared of dying, but wanted to be sure she knew I loved her, AND that I was glad that my last thoughts were of her and not of my cats or something even more selfish like “Shit! I didn’t spend that GAP Gift Card.” So, while maybe not a confessional, it was comforting to know that I really did love her, even while my plane was spiraling downward somewhere into Ohio.
I still book flights and pack suitcases. I still block out days on my calendar when my job needs someone to do a training in California. I still make a point to cameo at family parties half way across the country. I still over pack, and remember to tell Lauren I love her before and after I fly. I try to be brave enough to pull that mutant mirror toward my face every time I’m sleeping in a hotel is some strange city, knowing that magnifying the flaws aren’t going to make them worse. I still involuntarily collect frequent flier points, but I always keep a secret handy in case the nose of the plane ever tips toward the ground.
Author Bio: J. A. Stanula is a Chicagoan, born and raised, who is currently plowing through a Master’s of Writing, with a focus in non-fiction, at The Johns Hopkins University 800 miles from home. She digs humor writing, historical non-fiction, travel writing, and also has a strong interest in writing which exposes the issues, struggles and triumphs of minority communities. She hopes to return to Chicago after graduation to become involved with StoryStudio and participate in the wonderful writing scene in the best city on Earth.
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